رجب اسفندیاری

The advent of ChatGPT, an all-purpose intelligent Chabot created by Open AI, has created a multitude of prospects and opportunities within the realm of language education. Owing to its exceptional capacity to produce a wide range of textual outputs, ChatGPT responds to queries in a matter of seconds. The present study aimed to examine the appropriateness of ChatGPT-based instruction and flipped language learning instruction (FLLI) in classrooms in terms of enhancing EFL learners’ interactional metadiscourse realization across language proficiency levels. Sixty-three English language learners were divided into four distinct groups: 16 in the advanced and 16 in the intermediate FLLI group, 15 in the advanced, and 16 in the intermediate ChatGPT group. Before initiating the study, all participants were given a pretest that specifically assessed the use of interactional metadiscourse markers (IMMs) in argumentative writing. The four experimental groups were separately exposed to ChatGPT-based instruction and FLLI during eight sessions. Results from a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedure through SPSS (version 25) revealed that the ChatGPT-based instruction was more effective than FLLI, and both intermediate and advanced language learners following the ChatGPT-based instruction used IMMs in argumentative writing more successfully. Moreover, the participants’ perceptions of ChatGPT and FLLI were analyzed through MAXQDA (version 2020), showing more positive attitudes towards using ChatGPT in language learning in general and IM realization in particular. The findings have the potential to provide advantages for teacher educators in terms of utilizing ChatGPT learning approaches.

Although researchers have analyzed the formal, syntactic, and functional behavior of cleft sentences in the English language across various genres, their distributional frequencies have received very little attention in academic research genres. Therefore, drawing on a 20,389,297-word corpus including 1,521 research articles (RAs), 116 PhD dissertations, and 48 textbooks, in applied linguistics, this study followed Biber et al.’s (1999) and Collins’ (2002) models to identify and analyze four major types of cleft structures in our corpus. Using a corpus-based research design, we drew on concordances to extract the target cleft structures. The computer program AntConc was used to identify instances of cleft sentences, and the statistical significance of the findings was evaluated through separate chi-square tests. The results of frequency analysis showed varying degrees of these grammatical structures across the three research genres, with textbooks including the highest number of clefts, followed by dissertations, and RAs. The results promise pedagogical implications for non-native English student writers to familiarize themselves with conventions in academic research genre writing for publication purposes. The findings suggest that academic research genre writing affects the frequency and use of these complex grammatical structures.  

The present paper examines the theory of conceptual metaphor, using the theoretical framework of the cognitive writing model to improve EFL learners’ writing creativity and metacognitive writing awareness. To that end, 120 male and female EFL Bachelor-of-Arts (BA) students majoring in English language from Foreign Languages Center at Islamic Karaj Azad University in Iran voluntarily participated in this research study. The participants were randomly assigned into two equal groups, with the experimental group receiving the cognitive instruction and the control group the traditional instruction. Using a two-way analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA) procedure, the researchers assessed the posttest scores of both groups. The results of the analysis indicated that the experimental group significantly enhanced its scores in the posttest of metacognitive writing strategies and writing creativity compared to the control group. Findings suggest that writing is not drafting and rewriting prefabricated patterns, but it is a recursive and interactive process in which writers attempt to construct meaning and create original ideas using real-life experiences. Findings also imply that conceptual metaphors are powerful literary devices for improving EFL learners’ idea generation, writing creativity, and metacognitive writing awareness which deserve to be taught at universities.

Complexity measures in academic writing have experienced a shift from clausal to phrasal indices in recent years. Drawing on a subset of Biber et al.’s (2011) hypothesized stages of writing development, we explored phrasal complexity across sections (part-genres) of research articles (RAs) in applied linguistics and clinical medicine. A 389,332-word corpus consisting of 80 randomly selected RAs from leading journals in applied linguistics and clinical medicine was compiled for the purposes of the present study. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent-samples t -test, as implemented in SPSS (version 25), were employed to find differences across the RA sections and between two groups of academic writers. The findings indicated that RAs in clinical medicine relied more heavily on noun phrase modifiers in all sections than those in applied linguistics, suggesting that the distributional pattern of these linguistic expressions is discipline-independent. The implications of the distributional pattern of phrasal complexity are discussed in relation to L2 writing pedagogy and the development of genre-based, discipline-specific academic writing.

Many scholars have long contributed to making the instruction of oral production more effectively. This study compared three task types (information-gap, reasoning-gap, and opinion-gap tasks) and two cognitive styles (field-independence and field-dependence) regarding their effects on English as a foreign language (EFL( learners’ oral production linguistic complexity. The current study was quantitative in research methodology and followed the comparison group design. Initially, 230 Iranian learners were selected using convenience sampling. After the participants sat the proficiency test, the number of participants was reduced to 180 BA students at the university of Mohaghegh Ardabili and Islamic Azad University, Ardabil Branch. They were randomly divided into six experimental groups. Two groups were randomly assigned to field-independent (FI) and field-dependent (FD) information-gap tasks, the next two groups to FI and FD reasoning-gap tasks, and the other two groups to FI and FD opinion-gap task types. Each group consisted of 30 advanced EFL learners and was taught oral production using one of the above-mentioned task types. Michigan test of English Language Proficiency test (Phakiti, 2003) and group embedded figures test (Witkin et al., 1971) were used to determine proficiency level and measure cognitive styles. A two-way ANCOVA (analysis of covariance) procedure was run to examine the data. The results revealed significant differences among task types and cognitive styles, with FD learners and opinion-gap task being the most effective on EFL Learners' oral production linguistic complexity. The interaction between cognitive styles and task types is more likely to account for language learners’ oral performance.

Pragmatic comprehension is a central albeit under-researched dimension of pragmatic competence in which most EFL learners suffer from serious deficiencies; therefore, the current study was launched to compare the effects of the Non-Computer Mediated Instruction (NCMI) with Computer-Mediated Instruction (CMI), Multiuser Virtual Environments (MUVEs), and Mobile Augmented Reality Games (MARGs) on Iranian EFL learners’ comprehension of English speech-acts. Moreover, this study attempted to cross-compare the effects of the implicit, explicit, and balanced combination of explicit and implicit instruction and synchronous vs. asynchronous CMI impacts on learners' speech-act pragmatic comprehension. Seven equal size groups of 20 upper-intermediate EFL learners took part in this study. Three NCMI groups (implicit, explicit, and balanced explicit-implicit), two synchronous and asynchronous CMI groups (SCMI & ACMI), one MUVE group, and a MARG group were taught based on their assigned 10 two-hour sessions treatments. A validated listening pragmatic comprehension test was used as a pretest and post-test. Data analysis using one-way ANCOVA showed that the utilised MUVE (OpenSim) was more effective than other types of treatments on learners’ pragmatic comprehension development, and both CMI and NMCI were also better than the used MARGs (Batman Bat-Tech Edition and Harry Potter-Wizards Unite). Moreover, those explicit and balanced explicit-implicit interventions were significantly better than the implicit instruction. Finally, the SCMI could enhance L2 pragmatic comprehension significantly better than the ACMI. These findings pedagogically imply the use of MUVEs, SCMI, and balanced explicit-implicit interventions can strengthen L2speech-act pragmatic comprehension.

While metadiscourse has been extensively examined across several genres, contexts of publication, disciplines, and languages over the past two decades, researchers have mainly limited themselves to the qualitative checking of candidate metadiscourse markers for the various functions they serve. In the present study, however, we drew on retrospective methods coupled with semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper understanding of metadiscourse features applied linguistics apprentice and professional authors use in their research articles (RAs) in national and international English-medium journals. To achieve this goal, we built on Hyland’s (2019) interpersonal metadiscourse model to analyse RAs in three subsections including introductions, results, and discussion. We ran chi-square tests to examine the RA variations, following the descriptive analysis of the use of metadiscourse markers. A follow-up stimulated recall through semi-structured e-mail interviews was used. We used MAXQDA to analyse the interview data from authors. The results of qualitative and thematic analyses showed that metadiscourse markers play key roles in conveying the writers’ message and intention to the members of discourse communities. The findings of the study suggest raising apprentice writers’ awareness of the way they frame their message in research writing

Morphological complexity is one of the dimensions of complexity that has been increasingly analyzed over the last few years. However, results from previous studies drawing on only a single text type are inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of text types (descriptive, narrative, and expository) on the morphological complexity of essays written by Iranian English language learners. The participants included 87 lower-intermediate male and female L2 learners at six language institutes in Qazvin, Iran, who were selected from 127 language learners taking an Oxford Quick Placement test. The participants wrote on each text type in three consecutive weeks as a part of their classroom activity. The morphological complexity of verbs and nouns was separately calculated using the morphological complexity index. The data were analyzed using a series of Friedman and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests. The findings did not show any statistically significant differences across text types for nominal inflectional diversity; however, verbal inflectional diversity was statistically significant across text types, with narrative essays morphologically more complex than descriptive and expository essays. The findings may have theoretical and pedagogical implications for researchers and L2 teachers.

Attention to form in input now seems to have found its way into second language acquisition (SLA), and it is recommended that language learners’ consciousness be raised for language learning to occur and become intake. Input enhancement and output have received considerable attention in recent SLA as two attention-drawing devices. In the present study, we chose visual input enhancement to examine its effect on noticing and acquisition. To that end, two classes were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Both groups were exposed to ten different short stories for ten sessions for five weeks, but the type of exposure was different for each group. The English third person singular was highlighted for the experimental group through formatting techniques such as underlining, italicizing, and capitalising. Language learners in the experimental group were supposed to answer the questions following each short story and write a summary for it. Both groups were post tested one week after the treatment on both Noticing Test and a Written Production Test. The results of two independent t-tests showed the superiority of experimental group over the control group in noticing and learning the third person singular. Implications of the findings are discussed.

The present study investigated the use of lexical bundles (LBs) in research articles authored by English L1 and Persian L1 academic writers, with a special focus on the syntactic roles of LBs in a larger context of sentence level. Four-word bundles were retrieved and classified structurally. The use of identified LBs was compared in two writer groups. The syntactic roles and relative complexity of the bundles’ structures were analyzed in relation to Biber, Gray, and Poonpon’s (2011) hypothesized stages of writing development. The results indicated different patterns of reliance on LBs, with Persian writers making greater use of LBs at higher frequency. In addition, Persian academic writers tended to use high frequency bundles differently from native-speaker academic writers. The results of the syntactic analysis of LBs reflected more frequent use of LBs functioning as compressing lexico-grammatical structures in a native English-speaker corpus, which is indicative of a more complex academic register compared to that of a Persian L1 corpus. The pedagogical implications of the findings for the explicit instruction of syntactically complex corpus-driven LBs for discipline-specific genre writing and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Previous research has shown the differential effects of task-related prompts on syntactic complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical diversity when L2 learners use writing prompts to produce a piece of writing. However, the extent to which the freedom in the selection of prompts affects these linguistic facets in L2 argumentative essays is still unknown. The present study, therefore, was designed to investigate differences between syntactic complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical diversity in argumentative essays. Seventy-one upper-intermediate male and female Iranian English-as-a-foreign language (EFL) learners from Imam Khomeini International University in Qazvin and Safir Plus institute in Tehran participated in this study. Five-paragraph essays were used to collect data, and SPSS (version 25) was used to analyze the data. Results of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed statistically significant differences between syntactic complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical diversity. Results from post-hoc analyses revealed statistically significant differences between lexical diversity and grammatical accuracy as well as lexical diversity and syntactic complexity, but no statistically significant differences were found between grammatical accuracy and syntactic complexity in argumentative essays.

Previous evidence suggests that teachers’ practices are invariably inconsistent with their beliefs. Different factors have been cited as responsible for such a lack of correspondence. To advance the accumulated scholarship, the current study examined the correspondence/non-correspondence between English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ cognitive and behavioral manifestations of pedagogical beliefs and the extent that teacher grit, as a personal variable, impacts the connection between these two manifestations. An initial group of 70 EFL teachers responded to L2 Teacher Grit Scale and Pedagogical Beliefs Questionnaire. Based on their performance on the Grit Scale, two sub-groups of fifteen teachers (with high and low levels of teacher grit) were selected to examine the alignment/non-alignment of their pedagogical beliefs and practices. Two instructional sessions per teacher were observed by means of an observation checklist designed based on the Pedagogical Beliefs Questionnaire. Comparisons across the teachers showed that whereas the two groups valued pedagogical beliefs roughly equally, only the teachers with high grit levels showed strong evidence of correspondence between their beliefs and actual instructional practices. Based on the findings, it can be implied that teacher grit can serve a prominent role in the correlation between EFL teachers' self-reported pedagogical beliefs and their actual practices.

Due to the importance of idioms, many researchers and teachers have long sought to find ways of making idiom teaching and learning more effective. This study compared three visual mnemonic devices (pictures, mental imagery, and movie clips) in terms of their effect on EFL learners’ recognition and recall of English idioms. Ninety intermediate level EFL learners who were preparing themselves for IELTS participated in this study. They were in three groups of thirty members each. Each group was taught idioms using one of the afore-mentioned visual mnemonic devices. Receptive and productive tests of idioms were administered to all groups after the treatment. The one-way ANOVA procedure was used to analyze the collected data. The results revealed statistically significant differences among these devices, with pictures method being the most effective on both recognition and recall of idioms. The findings of the study can have significant theoretical as well as pedagogical implications for language researchers, textbook designers, curriculum developers, teachers, and language learners. 

This study examined the effects of input-oriented and output-oriented tasks with different involvement load indices on Iranian EFL learners' comprehension and production of lexical collocations. To achieve this purpose, a sample of 180 intermediate-level EFL learners (both male and female) participated in the study. The participants were in six experimental groups. Each of the groups was randomly assigned to one of the experimental conditions, namely input-oriented tasks with involvement load 1 (True-false), 2 (Matching), 3 (Multiple-choice), and output-oriented tasks with involvement load 1 (Short response), 2 (Fill in the blanks), and 3 (Sentence formation). At the end of the treatment period, the researchers administered a 40-item test in multiple-choice format and a 40-item test in fill-in-the-blanks format to assess the participants' comprehension and production of collocations. The collected data were analyzed using two different two-way ANOVAs and a series of independent-samples t-tests. The results showed that the tasks with higher involvement load indices were more effective on both receptive and productive knowledge of lexical collocations. The results also revealed that output-oriented tasks were more beneficial than input-oriented tasks at all three indices of involvement load. These findings can have theoretical and pedagogical implications for language teachers, researchers, and learners.